


The Ethical Moneylender

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-19 02:52:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13695366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: An ethical moneylender is found dead





	The Ethical Moneylender

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2018 Sentinel Bingo prompt 'The Debt'

The Ethical Moneylender

by Bluewolf

Shiro Kimura was known throughout Cascade as an ethical moneylender.

He refused to lend massive amounts, and his rate of interest was surprisingly low; he did not demand repayments so high that the borrower found himself trapped in an endless cycle of borrow and repay, with debts rising higher and higher every month. Families with a temporary cash-flow problem found him understanding and helpful. Indeed, they were his preferred clients. Not for him the gambler who ran up debts of thousands of dollars, then found himself unable to pay back all that he had borrowed because he was unable to stop gambling.

And because his interest rates were low, while he was reasonably wealthy, he wasn't the multi-millionaire most of the 'pay day lenders' were.

So when he was found lying dead in the street outside his house one morning, the whole of Cascade was shocked, and many genuinely mourned. Not just because everyone who needed a loan, however temporary, would now have to go to a money-lender who would fleece them - unless they could persuade their bank to lend them the money - but because he had been well liked.

***

A mysterious death, even when there was no sign of injury, automatically became the subject of a police investigation. And Homicide suspected that Kimura had been killed by - or on the orders of - one of the 'big time' moneylenders.

From sheer curiosity, although it wasn't his case, Jim went down to the morgue to see Dan just before he went home that evening

The Medical Examiner shook his head. "I can't find anything suspicious. I know there are some drugs that are supposed to leave no trace in the  blood after an hour or two, but anything given orally always leaves some traces in the stomach, and if it's injected we always find the needle mark. There's no sign of either on Mr. Kimura. My diagnosis would have to be natural causes; there's trauma to the heart that would indicate a myocardial infarction."

"A what?"

"The non-technical name is heart attack. I couldn't even say that he was challenged by someone and that gave him a heart attack - there's no sign of increased adrenalin in his blood.  No, I think he was just leaving home - or going home - and it hit him."

Jim sighed. "His death is going to hit quite a few people hard."

"I know. Pity it couldn't have been someone like Vic Thomas - he's a shark that would be no loss to the world."

***

But life for the people who needed short-term loans looked up again; Kazuo, the dead man's oldest son, moved into Cascade and took over his father's business, running it in exactly the same way.

Cascade again had an ethical money-lender.

 


End file.
